


Building a marriage is much like building a home

by melonbutterfly



Series: Accidental Marriage Trilogy [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidental Relationship, M/M, Press and Tabloids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 11:39:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony keeps waking up, still married to Loki (which won't get old anytime soon), and somehow everybody feels the need to put their own two cents in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Building a marriage is much like building a home

**Author's Note:**

> Check out this [awesome podfic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/510767) of The Accidental Husband that [sisi_rambles](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles) made!

"So hey," Tony says the evening of his first day after Loki made an honest man out of him. Or the other way around, it's sort of hard to say. Maybe nobody made an honest man out of anybody; after all they're neither of them particularly honest men.

Loki throws him an irritable look; they've had a hard day filled with serious business talks with a number of people. The fact that Thor had spent it practically glued to their sides had made it both easier and more difficult. Tony hadn't an opportunity to explain that no, there hadn't been a secret affair, only alcohol, mischief and lust, though all things considered, that's probably a good thing.

"Didn't ever expect to have you here," Tony continues awkwardly, perching on the foot end of the bed. Loki is sitting cross-legged in the middle of it, arms crossed as he stares at Tony with an indiscernible expression. He'd blown hot and cold on him all day, at times teasing him by elaborating on their forbidden romance, other times just snapping at him, all hidden barbs that made other people narrow their eyes at the both of them. They're in a very weird situation, but Tony suspects it has more to do with Tony having witnessed his moment of vulnerability earlier at the hotel.

"Come on," Tony whines when Loki doesn't deign to reply. "Don't be like that."

"What would you like me to be like then, _husband_?" Loki purrs, suddenly animated as he crawls across the bed towards Tony. It should be sexy (hell, it _is_ ), but there's a certain dangerous glitter in his eyes that makes Tony apprehensive. His instinct is proven correct when the next moment Loki changes into Pepper, a predatory expression on her face that Tony has never quite seen on the real Pepper, at least not with that razor sharp edge to it. "This, perhaps?" Loki breathes with Pepper's voice.

Tony only barely manages not to recoil physically. "No," he says strongly.

With a pretty pout Loki changes form again, becoming Steve. "Perhaps you would prefer this?"

Now Tony can't stop himself; he jumps up and moves away from the bed and Loki-Steve on it. "Stop fucking around," he orders angrily.

Loki's body melts back into himself, face distorted angrily. "Do not dare to give me orders ever again."

"Gladly, if you never do this again," Tony snaps back. "What the fuck was that supposed to be?"

"Why? I am quite sure you would rather be married to them than me," Loki returns haughtily.

Yeah, no. "Never," Tony says tightly, reminding himself not to flip his shit. Loki is obviously lashing out where best he can right now without immediately endangering this game (is it still a game? Doesn't feel like it anymore). "Pepper and I broke up over a year ago and I'm quite glad for it, thank you." Towards the end of their relationship they had only torn each other apart anymore, it hadn't been pretty. "And Steve... I don't even know where you get that idea from, just... no. No." He loves Steve, they're best friends, but he's definitely not Tony's type. Too built, too big, too unequivocally good. Tony prefers his partners slinky in more than just one way. "Could you picture me with Steve? God, I'd be going crazy within the week." Well, perhaps a bit more, but clearly some exaggeration of the truth won't do Loki any harm. He shakes his head, unwillingly grimacing. "It's like picturing having sex with Thor."

Loki's face takes on a similar expression. "Do not speak of such vile things in my bed."

"Oh, your bed, is it now?" Tony raises one eyebrow, playfully offended.

"What's yours is mine now, dearest husband," Loki replies lightly, lying back with his arms spread.

"Oh, is it?" Tony approaches the bed again, willing to pretend whatever just transpired didn't happen – for now. He crawls onto the mattress and knee-walks over to where Loki is spread out, watching him with glittering eyes. "I believe the reverse is also true."

"Perhaps," Loki sighs, closing his eyes and stretching, and Tony is familiar with that move. It doesn't make it any less effective though; Loki's got a killer body (no pun intended). Tony couldn't have married a sexier person if he'd actively tried to.

"We certainly should celebrate that," Tony murmurs, leaning in for a kiss. Loki returns it easily, tilting his chin up and opening his lips for Tony, tongue hot and mobile.

"But we already have done that," Loki says innocently when Tony pulls back to breathe. "Very, very thoroughly, if you care to remember."

"Oh, I do," Tony purrs. "Very well, in fact. And babe..." He slowly lets his eyes wander up and down Loki's body. "I gotta say, I couldn't have married better. Or hotter."

Loki bites his lower lip. "You are lucky I am familiar with Midgardian colloquialisms." With those mysterious words he pushes himself up, welding their mouths together and pushing Tony over onto his back. He straddles Tony's hips and captures his hands when they try to wander.

"I wish to ride you, and you will keep your hands here," Loki says firmly, pushing Tony's hands firmly onto the mattress next to his head.

"Oh, fuck." Pupils dilating, Tony helplessly stares up at him when Loki starts to strip, slowly, very slowly pulling his shirt up, revealing his satiny skin.

*

That first day is basically a blueprint of how the first week of their marriage passes. Lots of friction of both the sexy and the non-sexy kind, many conversations with a number of people, primarily the Avengers (separate and in various combinations, and god, Tony is sick of having basically the same conversation over and over again) and a couple of SHIELD representatives. A number of people try to forbid Tony a number of things at different stages of these talks, and various people come to his defence – or not. Thor is generally among them, followed by Loki whenever he feels like it, and surprisingly Bruce turns out to be a great defender of Tony and Loki. Not only Tony and Loki but everybody else is very surprised by that, but come to think about it, it's not that far-fetched after all. Bruce is intimately familiar with monsters within (and on the outside) and even more with losing one's temper. At first Loki is wary (understandably so, and it makes him bristly but it's a good thing because it amuses Clint and makes him considerably less hostile, knowing that Loki is still scared of the Hulk) but eventually he thaws, and all of a sudden he and Bruce are talking animatedly, striking up what looks like to be an epic friendship. Tony can't make up his mind whether he's pleased by that or jealous. And who he's jealous of.

But yeah, once they reach the five day mark Tony is completely fed up with being poked and prodded and questioned and threatened. If anybody were going to do anything, they already would have – if they had any sort of leverage. Which they don't, not the least of which because of Thor, Bruce and even Steve's support. What remains is simply powerplay and politics, and Tony really has better things to do than bear that any longer.

Finally dealing with Pepper and the press is not one of them, but it's the most necessary, after Tony has spent the past five days practically in hiding, not exactly out of his own choice.

Pepper has reached the deadly calm stage Tony likes to mentally refer to as "if I don't do what she says an alien will burst out of her chest and eat me alive" by the time Tony calls her. It takes Tony half an hour to convince her that it wasn't his own decision to go into hiding; he has to involve half the Avengers plus Coulson before she'll believe him. After that Pepper gets worried for a brief moment, wanting to know what the hell would warrant this level of interrogation, and then Tony tells her exactly who he married (apparently the press have been calling Loki various versions of "dark-haired, long-legged model", with different people having come forward claiming to be related to or friends of him).

After that it takes him about an hour to talk Pepper down, and not even the involving of Steve, Thor and Bruce to vouch for Loki helps. Eventually Tony loses his temper and yells "I just fucking like him, okay! He's unpredictable and entertaining and he doesn't expect anything of me!" In the ensuing deadly silence (because of course he'd have to lose it in front of half the Avengers) he adds, a little calmer, "I also like fucking him."

Pepper makes some sort of noise but Tony can't hear properly because Loki, who's been sitting on a bar stool in front of the kitchen island while Tony had been pacing back and forth, stretches his leg and pokes Tony in the ribs with his big toe. "You also like being fucked by me," he reminds Tony lightly. His eyes are strangely intent though, fixated on Tony's face and belying the nonchalant tone of his voice.

Clint makes a retching noise, earning himself an exasperated huff from Natasha. Tony refuses to turn around to look at them or at Steve, who's sitting with the two assassins in the living room. The open plan of the communal floor gives them perfect view of the newlyweds, and Tony doesn't intend to give them any more of a show than he already has.

"What is your plan?" Pepper asks very calmly, giving Tony the feeling that that went below the belt a bit. But, well, it's true. Loki has made no attempt to change Tony, neither direct nor indirect ("I thought I was important/attractive enough to you that you wouldn't need to sleep with other people", Tony doesn't know how often he's heard that sentence in the course of his life and he's so, so sick of it, though who knows, Loki might say it yet).

"Concerning what?" He returns the question in an equally calm tone of voice. He captures Loki's foot and gives it a light squeeze, managing to dredge up something resembling a smile for him.

"Your marriage," she says very dryly. "You have to make some sort of statement by this point, there's no way around it."

"Press conference?" Tony half asks, half suggests. He likes press conferences; they're both entertaining and get the job done. Tony is an exhibitionist partly out of self-defence, partly simply because he enjoys fucking with people.

"Yes," she says. "I will send Mark and Angela over to discuss the details. Tomorrow at eleven?" Mark is Tony's current personal assistance, Angela the head of his PR team.

Tony sighs. He'd love to sleep in and just spend the day in bed with Loki, but he's well-aware that the longer he lets this slide, the more he'll have to deal with in the end. "Okay."

"Good. Congratulations on your marriage," she says crisply and hangs up.

Yeah. Tony definitely fucked up somehow, but honestly, he's not overly bothered right now. Yeah, he and Pepper are friends, but their relationship fucked them up considerably more than either of them had wanted. He has no control over that, neither of them apparently have.

"So?" Loki asks when Tony turns the mobile off and puts it in his backpocket.

"We got an appointment tomorrow, deal with this mess," Tony replies, gesturing vaguely towards the window.

"Hmm," Loki makes, looking extraordinarily unconcerned. He twists his foot out of Tony's grip and hooks it around his waist, pulling Tony into the space between his thighs. They kiss, Loki's hands settling on Tony's waist. Tony cups Loki's jaw with one hand, coming to quite like the gesture. Loki is by no means fragile but there nevertheless is a hint of it in his face, the straightness of his nose, the noble cheekbones.

"Oi, take that to the bedroom, that's what you got it for," Clint calls over to them, not exactly friendly but considerably less nasty than he could have been.

Rolling his eyes, Tony turns his head to snark back but all of a sudden they're not in the kitchen anymore but on a floor beneath in Tony's bathroom, the counter of it the only thing on Tony's floor approaching the same height as the bar stool Loki had been sitting on.

Several things go through Tony's head; a request for Loki not to do that again without asking, let's do that again do you do long distance, a number of questions as to the physics and limits behind the teleportation, is there any way for Tony to build a warning system for this sort of thing. None of them are a priority, though, and so Tony just goes back to kissing Loki, even more thoroughly now that they don't have an audience anymore.

"Fancy a bath?" He suggests when he pulls away, licking his swollen lips and eyeing Loki's reddened ones with satisfaction.

"Hmm, yes," Loki hums, wrapping both arms around Tony's shoulders and tightening his legs around his waist. He clearly expects to be carried and Tony indulges him for a bit, putting his hand on Loki's ass and walking the ten steps over to the tub.

"Gotta let go now, babe," he says then. "We have to get naked and you have to pick a scent."

Loki hums curiously and lets go, stepping away from Tony to give him room to move. The bathtub is one of those standing freely in the room with tiny golden feet; Tony had picked it partly because he expected it to break at one point, considering the not inconsiderable weight that fits into its roomy insides. It hasn't done that yet, which is quite impressive because Tony has done some quite ungentle things in there.

"Here, pick any," he offers, opening a cupboard in the wall filled with a number of scented bath things, ranging from gels over oils and salts to bombs. Loki immediately starts opening bottles and smelling things while Tony turns on the water, testing the temperature.

"There is quite the variety," Loki comments, holding up a fist-sized bomb. "What is this?"

"A bomb. You drop it in the water and it dissolves – the name is sort of undeserving though, it's fun but there are no actual explosions."

"I would like to try this," Loki decides, handing Tony the bomb and turning back to the cupboard. While Loki explores the remaining contents Tony takes the opportunity to take his clothes off and get that little tray on wheels; the downsides to a free-standing bathtubs are that there is no place to put anything down. He puts the bomb on it and then wanders off to get them a bottle of a nice old scotch and two glasses, and then a bag of chips because alcohol plus hot bath on an empty stomach might not be an ideal combination.

"These," Loki informs Tony of his decision, showing off a bag of marble-sized bath bombs.

"These are fizzies, they don't sink, they just fizz around on the surface until they're dissolved. Pretty entertaining too," Tony tells him.

"Wonderful." Loki hands Tony the bag and starts stripping off unceremoniously, but no less glorious for it. Tony watches unabashedly, which Loki comments with a surprisingly sweet, honest smile.

"What is the protocol then?" Loki asks then, absently holding his and out for the bombs. "Do we get in first, or do the bombs?"

"Doesn't matter." Tony shrugs. "I like getting in first, it's more fun to play with them."

Loki immediately climbs into the tub, sending Tony an expectant look as he gets comfortable at one end. Tony settles at the other end and turns off the water; it's lapping at the bottom of his arc reactor which is more than enough, taking into account the possibility of them doing _things_ in here later.

"Keep still," Loki orders, watching as the surface of the water stills. He digs into the bag and takes one mini bomb out, dropping it carefully into the water. It immediately starts fizzing and eventually starts moving under the force of its own dissolution, picking up great speed as it zips around between the walls of the tub. Very quickly it dissolves completely.

Tony is watching Loki much more than the mini-bomb; his expression is intent and fascinated, it's actually sort of adorable when considering what he is focusing on so intently. As soon as the first mini bomb is gone Loki drops a second one into the water and starts playing with it, putting his hand in its path and pushing the fizzing mini bomb in Tony's direction. It bumps into him but dissolves halfway on the way back to Loki.

"They die quickly, do they," Loki comments, picking a third mini bomb, flicking it over to Tony immediately. They manage to send it back and forth a couple of times and the next one too, but then Loki grows bored of the game and closes his fist around a mini-bomb as he dunks it underwater.

It slips out between his fingers almost immediately; Loki huffs a smile as the bubbles tickle his palm. He starts experimenting with the other mini-bombs, absently having Tony hold the bag when he decides that two hands are necessary. By the time all the mini-bombs are gone he looks deeply satisfied.

"The big one?" Tony suggests.

Loki smiles with delight. Tony drops the big bomb in the water and watches as Loki plays with the ensuing bubbles.

"These are very entertaining," Loki comments once it's all dissolved. "One thing I have to commend Midgardians for is your ability to invent quite useless but entertaining things."

"Hey, these are plenty useful," Tony comments lazily, sinking back into the hot water and pushing his feet over towards Loki. "They're fun and they make you clean. They're doubly useful, actually."

Loki raises an eyebrow but doesn't argue.

They lie in silence for a bit, letting the hot water soothe their muscles (and they certainly need it). Eventually Tony remembers the scotch and hands Loki a tumbler. He also offers the chips, which make Loki snort. "Sometimes you are quite plebeian." He does take the chips willingly though.

Uncaring, Tony shrugs. "I don't bother much with useless things, you might have noticed."

"Useless things such as class?" Loki raises an eyebrow. Tony absolutely can't tell whether he's teasing because he agrees with Tony or not.

Whatever, it wouldn't change Tony's answer either way. "Exactly." He toasts his glass and takes a sip. "Also decorum. Politeness. All these nice little rules society makes up to keep people in line. Fuck all that."

Loki smiles and doesn't reply.

By the time they climb out of the tub the water is only lukewarm anymore, so they take a quick shower to warm up and wash their hair properly. Except it doesn't end up being all that quick after all because Loki rediscovers the waterproof lube Tony keeps in his shower and decides that it needs to be applied. As a result Tony almost slips and breaks his bones several times because his knees go weak; eventually Loki takes care of that by hoisting Tony up and pressing him into the wall. Every now and then Tony manages to forget the part where Loki is a god, and then he does something like this or the teleportation earlier and reminds Tony.

They don't bother drying off after that, just tumble into bed and get the sheets wet, but Jarvis simply turns the air conditioner warmer. It makes up a bit for the fact that he wakes them up way too early with the claim that they need special time to wake up. To prove that he's right about that they use the extra time to celebrate their marriage.

Two hours later they're clean and dressed, have been fed breakfast and are on their second cups of coffee as they meet up with Mark and Angela. Mark appears frazzled, apparently he hasn't had a break ever since the pictures of their wedding went viral, getting swamped with emails and phone calls requesting to demanding statements – looks like Tony's got to have a conversation with the board again and explain once more that his private life is none of their business whatsoever. Anybody else who's been asking is either a reporter or someone Tony didn't care about enough to give them his private contact details; consequently, it's none of their business.

Angela is a little less easy to be taken care of. She spends three hours hammering out the details of the planned press conference, ranging from over what Tony will say and whether Loki will be there (yes, Loki declares, but remains undecided on whether he's going to speak or not) to what they will wear. Of course she knows better than to expect him to act according to plan (Tony isn't a fan of cards), so she ends up informing him of the consequences of various things he might end up saying. That's the part where Tony generally zones out. There's nothing they can do to him either way.

He starts paying attention again when Loki next to him suddenly becomes animated, asking questions about – a photographer?

It turns out Angela suggested they have some professional pictures taken of each other and do two or three interviews.

"One," Tony says firmly. There is a magazine he's built up a good relationship with over the past couple of years; they don't write shit about him (ever) and he tends to reward that by preferring them. He gets on with the interviewer; she doesn't twist his words and has never tried to get into his bed.

Angela sighs noisily but gives in.

Once she is gone Tony and Loki start sorting through some pictures from the security cameras Jarvis selects for them in lieu of doing an actual shooting. As they do that Tony comes aware of just how much time they've spent together over the past couple of days. They look so casual, so comfortable together; there's one picture where Tony is sitting in the corner of the sofa and Loki is perching on the armrest, one arm casually around Tony's shoulders, both looking at something off-camera (which Tony remembers to be Coulson). Another picture is of Tony and Loki standing, Tony with his arms wrapped around Loki from behind. They're both grinning; a moment before Tony had whispered something suggestive into Loki's ear, or maybe a derisive comment about SHIELD. They look like... well, like the couple they're claiming to be. It's insane, considering that just a week ago they were still enemies. Okay, enemies who flirt a lot. And maybe have some sexual fantasies about each other.

It's just unreal. Yeah, Tony had found Loki fascinating before, but mostly he had been captivated by the beauty of a total breakdown – a dark mirror image of what he could have been, had Afghanistan pushed him into a different direction. There had never been a thought about doing anything about the attraction Tony undeniably felt, or even about there being the chance to.

And here they are, getting along as if they actually have been having the affair everybody (reasonably) assumes they had.

Neither of them says anything about it but they both get quieter and quieter as they flick through the pictures, trying to pick some where they look cosy but not too much so, even better if it's with some of the other Avengers. The point is to release some of them on the Avengers website in lieu of an actual photographer – Loki hadn't liked that, especially in light of the fact that the interview would include a bit of a photoshooting.

One thing they hadn't discussed with Angela was how they would explain Loki and the fact that for over a year, he had been the Avengers' enemy. She had had some suggestions but Tony had shut that down very quickly and changed the topic. That doesn't change, however, that it needs to be addressed.

"So," Tony says, bumping his shoulder into Loki's. They're sitting on the bed together, looking at a tablet while flicking through pictures. "We gotta talk about the fact that you've killed a bunch of humans."

Loki stiffens. "I am not apologizing."

"Didn't say you had to." Though he sort of does – not that it would change anything though, Tony hadn't apologized for the people he killed either. What matters is the feeling, not the words. "But we're going to have to address it somehow. Even if they haven't figured out your identity yet, they will eventually and trust me, it will be considerably easier on everyone if we've told them ourselves."

"What do you suggest, then?" Loki asks haughtily. "Should we explain the truth, so nobody will think I tainted you?"

Tony snorts. "Yeah, no. That'd be about a million times worse than anything else we could say. No, I was thinking of going with a different truth."

"That would be? Out with it, Stark, I grow weary of this conversation."

"Well, we could explain about the whole disaster with Odin and the adoption and all that," Tony suggests. "I'm sure Thor will happily take on part of the blame." In other words, tell everybody that anything Loki had done over the past year had been an epic temper tantrum by a god. Gods do things in godly proportions, it's sort of logical, right?

Loki narrows his eyes and stares at Tony for a long moment. "You are suggesting we blame Thor, then."

"And Odin, yeah." Tony nods.

"I suppose that is acceptable," Loki says haughtily. Tony bets he loves it; he should've figured Loki would like having the opportunity to impugn Thor and Odin to an avidly listening audience.

Not that that's really what they're going to do; Tony just wants to put a human spin on Loki that will incur people's sympathy or at least pity. Hopefully that means they won't storm his tower and try to burn it down once they figure out who Loki really is. Another point in their favor is that Loki's excursions were generally meant to provoke Thor, which means a lot of property damage and the threat of genocide, but not all that many actual dead, all things considered.

"Okay, great, that's taken care of, then. Sex first, then lunch?"

In lieu of a verbal reply Loki flicks the tablet to the foot of the bed and pulls his shirt over his head.

"The sex," Tony says a couple of hours later; Gertrud, the interviewer, just asked him what he likes best about married life.

"Surely you had sex before you got married." Gertie raises an eyebrow.

"Of course," Tony returns, _just not with Loki_. "But I don't really bring people to the tower, at least not where I live. Whenever I want to have sex I have to make a point of going somewhere else, and really, I'm lazy, so I do that a lot less than most people probably think. But now that I'm married Loki of course is living with me, which means sex whenever I want to."

"So your marriage was not planned?"

Tony snorts. "That should be patently obvious to everyone, I mean, we look plenty drunk on those pictures. Yeah, we did talk about it," ten minutes before it happened, "but we didn't actually plan for it to happen, I mean, it wasn't an option anyway. When we woke up the next morning, we were about as surprised as everybody else."

"Hardly," Gertie snorts. "People were probably more shocked about the fact that you were in a relationship beforehand than the fact that you got drunkenly married."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Please. Just because I enjoy sex and don't need to be friends with my partners first doesn't mean I'm incapable of having a committed relationship." He glances at Loki and grins. "With the right person."

Gertie follows his look; Loki hasn't said a word yet since the introduction. "And Mr... Loki is the right person?"

"Stark," Loki says abruptly. "We _are_ married."

Tony does his best not to look as startled as he feels; he hadn't even thought about that.

"Right, of course, Mr. Stark," Gertie corrects herself, the friendly expression not leaving her face.

"Obviously," Tony says, answering the question before Loki can be any more rude. It's a bad idea to offend your interviewer, but Tony honestly is the last person to criticize such a thing. He makes it a habit to offend reporters. "I mean, look at him, he's gorgeous. And he's an asshole. It probably didn't escape anyone that I enjoy assholes."

"Like seeks like," Loki comments sweetly.

Tony laughs. "Yes, exactly."

Gertie smiles. "So how did you meet?"

"Well..." Tony looks at Loki.

Loki smiles sweetly. "It was not a good situation. I was under the control of a very dangerous creature. He forced me to invade this planet a little more than a year ago."

Gertie fumbles and almost drops her tablet. Blinking rapidly, she stares at Loki. "Are you saying-?"

"That I led the invasion of the Chitauri? Unfortunately, yes." Loki looks honestly regretful; even Tony can't tell whether it's fake or not and he's become intimately familiar with a variety of Loki's facial expressions lately. "I did my best to create a situation that wouldn't engender too much damage or loss of life."

"You did?" Gertie asks, sounding astonished. It's understandable in light of the figures – the incredible amount of damage to New York, the amount of people who died or were homeless afterwards – and until now the public hadn't known any details about what actually happened.

"Indeed." Loki's lips twist bitterly. "A bottleneck invasion is strategically the least likely to succeed. And I managed to give the others enough hints to figure out my plan and defeat me even though I was under constant surveillance."

"That must have been a terrible situation for you," Gertie says. She's eying Loki, not sure yet whether he's bullshitting her or telling the truth.

"Not made easier when, upon my return home, my father planned to execute me," Loki agrees with a nod.

Now Gertie is honestly shocked. "He did?!"

"Yes." Loki shrugs with false nonchalance. "It left me with no other choice but to seek an alliance with someone strong enough to help protect me. And unfortunately the only ones willing to listen had a few conditions I had to meet in return."

"Yeah, that's Doctor Doom for you." Tony grimaces and takes Loki's hand. "Didn't make it easy for me to get him to listen to me."

Loki rolls his eyes. "Excuse me for being wary of a guy who lives and fights alongside with my brother." For Gertie's benefit he adds, "Thor is very loyal to our father."

"That sounds like you were in a very difficult situation," Gertie says. "How did you manage to bridge those differences?"

"Lots of alcohol and sex," Tony says bluntly. It's the complete truth, after all.

"That was the beginning, anyway," Loki adds. "Our relationship developed unexpectedly fast from there. We found that we get along surprisingly well and have much in common; we were married before we knew it."

Oh, Silvertongue indeed; not a lie in sight. Tony wants to blow him just for that.

"A whirlwind romance, then?" Gertie asks. "Formed under the most unlikely circumstances."

"Oh, definitely," Tony agrees.

"How did the other Avengers take it?"

"They support us," Tony replies.

"They have been very kind to give me a chance despite our history," Loki adds. Tony wonders how hard that was to say and marvels at how perfectly sincere Loki sounds.

"That's nice." Gertie smiles at them both. She asks them a couple more questions about if they've had a honeymoon, are they going to and if so where, what do they think about the media fuss and some other things. All in all the interview takes about an hour, and afterwards they take a couple of pictures with the photographer who's been snapping away at them during the interview. And then, finally, it's over; Gertie and her crew leave, meaning Tony and Loki can leave as well.

Except Loki doesn't seem to want to; he took a look at the bathroom earlier and found that Tony has an entirely different bathtub in his penthouse – one with a whirlpool. Loki apparently simply _has_ to try it.

"Oh," he moans as he sinks back into the hot, bubbling water. "Why do you not have this at the tower?"

"I don't use it when I'm alone," Tony shrugs. "Clint calls this my lovenest."

"Oh, this is where you bring people to have sex, is it? How fitting." Loki tilts his head back and closes his eyes.

"Yes. Fitting how?" Tony nudges Loki in the ribs with his big toe.

"Because we are going to have sex later, of course," Loki replies. "Now hush, I wish to enjoy this whirlpool. Another of Midgard's quite useless but entertaining inventions."

"You were amazing today," Tony says later, as they're lying in bed together. "Terrifying, but amazing."

Loki smiles smugly. "Thank you. It was quite entertaining. I look forwards to seeing the article later."

"Me too." Tony sighs and buries his face in Loki's neck, about to doze off for an afternoon nap.

"And to seeing how you will handle Odin later."

Tony raises his head. "Wait, what?"


End file.
